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Plaited bead knitting in the round To work a traditional knit-in-the-mund b stitch. Thefabric biases slighUy (above), but all the beads slant in the same di1'ection. eade Round 1: Plain, uncrossed Western knitting. inside of the loop below, and locking the bead into place with the slip stitch. To block out most of the bias, I soaked the finished rectangle in cool water for about 15 minutes. I laid it out wrong side up on a fluffy towel on my ironing board, and using a yardstick to make sure the sides were equal lengths and the piece was square, I stretched and pinned repeatedly until everything was even. I placed pins at %-in. intervals and let it dry for several days. I interfaced and stabilized the purse shape by couching a double layer of hair canvas, cut on the straight grain, to the inside (see Threads, No. 16, p. 30, for more on couching). I placed pins at the corners, then at the side centers, and finally along the edges to keep the bag aligned on the straight of the canvas. I pinned all over the inner portion of the rectangle to keep it sq uare during couching. As I couched in zigzags round and round the bag, I was very careful to go between beads and not to split the knitting silk. The lining is a heavy silk charmeuse that exactly matches the blue beads. I cut it with generous seam allowances all around and staystitched. I carefully measured the amount of pouch to be folded up and the place the flap would fall across the back. Then I cut a mirror pocket double, sewed right sides together almost all around, inverted it, and folded in the unsewn seam. I placed it on the center back of the lining so the mirror top would be a scant '/8 in. below the flap fold and topstitched the pocket sides and bottom in place close to the edge. Then I sewed the lining pouch, leaving an allowance to be folded in and handsewn at tlle front top. I tacked in the bottom corners. I handsewed the bead pouch with an overhand stitch, folding in the selvage. Then 28 Round 2: Plain, uncrossed Eastern knitting. (Yarn thrown clockwise.) I worked a blind hem along the top edge of the pouch and lining. I blind-hemmed the flap sides and top (photo, p. 27). Finally, I attached the strap. I found some lovely silver metal tassels at the M & J Trimming Co. in New York. I ran the threads from the cord ends through the loops on top of each tassel and the center of the cord for several inches. the cord invisibly along the edges of the side pouch seams up to the flap fold. An Knitting a for my next adventure: All of the older bags that I've seen were knit in the round, probably to avoid purling. Knitting in the back of each stitch and pushing the bead through from back to front is relatively easy, but there's still a major problem: All twisted stitches bias. Some of the bags I studied looked like beaded bias tubes with pastoral scenes spiraling around them. Adjusting gauge, tension, and materials bea d purse in the round N ow - can help, and you can block out a lot of the distortion, but it seemed that there ought to be a way to control the bias by alternating it. That technique is known as plaited knitting; it was much more common centuries ago, particularly in the East, in the Middle East, and in Northern Africa. Mary Thomas's Knitting Book (Dover reprint, 1972) explains how to produce it in flat knitting and notes that it was sometimes used for bead knitting. In order to work plaited knitting in the round, you must altenlate a plain, mlcrossed round of Western-style Imit with a round of plain, uncrossed Eastern knitting (drawing above). The opposite methods of entering the stitch and throwing the yarn cause the stitches on each round to alternate the direction of twist. overhand stitch holds Plaited, knitrin-the-round fam'ic in uncrossed alte1"nate rounds won't bias. On the left; in the Eastm-n next, one 1'Ottnd, Qfu bea they skutt knitting. Thefabric {left} to ncro᳠sed Western upds is slant to the right. up All choices have consequences, and choosing to eliminate the bias in bead fabric by zigzagging it this way involves tradeoffs. Most of the bags I saw were Imit with a single direction of cross and its conseq uent bias; so, if you want to knit something typically authentic, your bag should bias. If your beads are transparent or semitransparent, you'll see them aligned on the thread diagonally. Most were also knit ,vith a Western crossed stitch, so the thread slants upward to the left. On plaited fabric, one round slants upward to the left, and the next slants upward to the right. The beads also tend to nestle into each other. These effects (detail photos above) can be distracting or attractive, depending on your design and point of view. I decided it was very important to knit my elaborate floral purse in the round, without bias, so my first step was to practice plaited bead knitting in the round. The odd-nunlbered rounds are plain, uncrossed Western knit (left drawing, above), with a bead inserted on each stitch. The evennmnbered rounds are plain, uncrossed Eastern knitting and beads. If the left-hand (front) leg of the stitch is closer to the tip of the needle, you know the stitch was knit Western; if the right-hand (back) leg is closer to the tip, the stitch was knit Eastern. I was ready to find my floral pattern. I considered tracing a picture onto fine graph paper and coloring it. If a friend hadn't come up with the antique chart on the cover, that's what I'd have done. With the chart in hand, I made a list of the colors and numbers of shades of each that I needed. Then came the hard partfinding 32 different colors of the same size seed bead. I didn't need large quantities of any of the pattern colors, so I didn't want to T hrea᳠긎 Maga᳠ ine worked and d bag, you k-nit in the back of everl J